Introduction to the textsA few months ago Susan and I plotted out our Creation Care Month - when we would engage with earth stewardship and climate change, hands on care, and psalms of praise, at all ages - in worship, Sunday School and service. We planned a progression of sermons - praise & mindfulness - that was last week; confession and repentance - this week; Susan will wrap up with commitment and action - next week. (I didn’t draw the short straw - I chose this theme!) When it came time for me to consider scripture, I started where I always do, the Lectionary, a three year cycle of texts suggested for mainline churches, expecting that I would have to look elsewhere. But these three readings - the psalm we read earlier, the words of Amos and Hebrews you are about to hear - are straight out of this week’s lectionary, as if the Holy Spirit were already at work before our planning began. They are sharp, prophetic words, calling for great change - and yet they do not end with rebuke. So when you hear words of judgment do not close your ears, but listen also for words of grace.

Texts

Amos 5:6-7, 10-15 (Trina)5:6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.

5:7 Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!

5:10 They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.

5:11 Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

5:12 For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins-- you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.

5:13 Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time.

5:14 Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said.

5:15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Hebrews 4:12-16 (Reebee)4:12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

4:13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

4:14 Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

4:16 Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Prayer

SermonAmos was a herdsman, seemingly minding his own business with his flock, in the midst of 8th Century BCE Israel. It was a period of calm, the height of Israel’s territorial expansion and prosperity. And God tapped Amos on the shoulder and said, preach. He had the task of “preaching harsh words in a smooth season.”[1] He spoke to a nation, not to individuals.[2] Amos spoke to the people of Israel to remind them that they were the people God loved and knew. (3:2) They had a special place in God’s heart. But they had turned toward military might, corporate immorality, meaningless piety, and social injustice.[3] This is not what God had in mind for Israel and God kept saying, come back, come back to the path that I have set for you, my beloved people. But, no. You can almost hear the sadness when through Amos God said to the people: “you did not return to me.” (4:6) And so Amos predicted that Israel would perish - an adversary would take the land and the people would be exiled. And for this prediction he was kicked out of town by the king. Because it is hard to imagine changing paths when the one you are on seems so...prosperous. But when his prophecy became fact, when the kingdom fell, when the people were scattered - the people in exile wrote down Amos’ words for the ages.

There’s a very important Hebrew word in Amos - to return to God - translated from the Hebrew - shuwb or teshuvah[4] - with different forms used a full thousand times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Amos is calling for change, calling for teshuvah, calling for the people to return to God. When we think of repentance in the Hebrew Bible it is this word that is at the center of that concept. It’s turning, not punishment.

Louis Newman, a Jewish scholar, says that “doing repentance, doing teshuvah, is about returning to purity and wholeness...being true to who we really are. It is about turning. So turning away from the path you've been on, back toward a loftier goal, back toward our true selves, back toward God, back toward a righteous life. It's a kind of shifting orientation, turning your attention somewhere else. It's also about... returning to one's true nature.”[5]

Amos is calling for the people to turn and return toward God. Amos is asking them to do something extraordinary: to see far enough into the future to recognize that their seemingly <prosperous> nation was on track for catastrophe - and to change direction. There are two reasons for the Israelites to change course - the first is that their corporate actions have been wrong, have gone against God, have oppressed the vulnerable. The second reason is that if they keep doing what they are doing, their actions will lead to their downfall. But, the King says, what we’ve been doing has gone so well...this is no time to change - what future could be better than this one? We’ll stay on this track, thanks. Go away, prophet.

Professor Newman makes a further point: if we do not turn from our transgresions and turn back toward God - “we're in bondage to the thing that we've done...we let it dictate our next move and the move after that. To do repentance is to be free of that.”[6]

It is only when we turn away from death and toward life, that we can see the path of life in front of us. It is only when we are brave enough to say, we have been going in the wrong direction, that we can set forth with our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our feet turned toward God’s better future.--Preaching recently about climate change at Bethel AME Church in Boston, Mariama White-Hammond had this to say about the path our nation and our world are on:

“We have chosen our plan over God’s plan. We have chosen consumption over consecration. We have chosen sumptuous greed over sacrificial giving.”[7]

We are choosing to stay on the wrong path.--I am heartened that some progress is happening around climate - solar & wind are gaining ground; here in this building we are Energy Star certified and Mayor Warren wants every house of worship in Newton to be green; people are showing up in hundreds and thousands for rallies and marches and vigils. Pope Francis has named climate change as one of the greatest moral issues we face and has framed climate action as social justice: [A“true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” (Laudato Si)]

But. Our path has not changed, shows no sign of true change, as one journalist puts it:

“The world’s known fossil-fuel reserves contain as much as five times the carbon that [can be] burned if we want a planet hospitable to humans. And yet the fossil-fuel industry and its political enablers have doubled down on a profit model that involves extracting and selling it all.”[8]

Let me say that in different words: Our society seems to believe that we are so dependent upon fossil fuels that we are doubling down on that which will destroy us, rather than freeing ourselves from bondage to it by practicing a great turn, a great repentance, a great reorientation toward a better future. We prioritize short term financial security over the stability of the world we are passing on. We let industry run elections and write public policy.[9] We invest money in companies that have hidden, since 1977, their knowledge of the destructive power of their products.[10] We consider it unrealistic to shift to renewables so we build more pipelines, which then will lock us into using more fossil fuels. We cannot imagine change, perhaps we cannot even imagine admitting that the system we are in is sinful. So we let our current path dictate our future.

Amos, we say. What we’ve been doing has gone so well...this is no time to change - what future could be better than this one? We’ll stay on this track, thanks. Go away, prophet.

This sermon is a call to repentance - and what I mean by that, is: an invitation to be brave enough and bold enough to imagine a better future. For it is only when we can make that imaginative leap, that we will stop being in bondage to our current, destructive path.

What does that better future look like? Something like this, I think:

Every child in every neighborhood breathes clean unpolluted air and asthma rates plummet.

Every father in every neighborhood has a warm, weatherized home for his family.

Dedham children do not have to worry about what is seeping up from the pipelines beneath their soccer fields and in Four Corners there is high speed transit for people to get to work.

Every mountaintop if covered in growing things and every rooftop is covered in solar.

Every town has a transition to a just and stable economy.

Good food grows nearby and the monarchs rebound.

Every mother in every country has access to safe drinking water.

Our economy is based in what is good for all the people.

We are oriented to “intergenerational solidarity” (Pope Francis). We see the intersections of class, race, gender, and environment.

The forests of California grow again.

There have been climate prophets for a lot of years now, denouncing social injustice, communal immorality. Reminding us that “all who Jesus names as the least of these...are being affected by climate change already, and will be the ones most devastated by climate change in the future.”[11] Questioning a socioeconomic system that prioritizes profits over planet.

We live in a moment when we barely need prophets. We just read the headlines - fire, drought, flood, storm, refugees. If we are awake, we know the the looming catastrophe is here.

How do we respond?

Some recycle and change our light bulbs and think we can do no more, or even think we don’t need to do more.

Some say, our economy just works this way.

And yet, like Amos, today’s prophets still preach repentance and turning.

This is the work of systemic change, the embodiment of belief not only that the path we are on is the wrong one - but that we can turn.

Folks, I have been hesitant to say, too boldly, my feeling on the resolutions before our congregation next week. Hesitant because on a pastoral level regardless of how we vote, you are part of my flock, part of Susan’s flock - and I know the folks who have been actively thinking about investing in solar and divesting from fossil fuels have been doing so with faithfulness and careful discernment and with good intention.

Amos was a herdsman who spoke a prophetic word. I will never be a prophet like him but I am reminded that prophet is part of my mantle, and Susan’s mantle, too. So I will be frank and tell you that solar panels and divestment, in different ways, bring us into the sphere of public witness on climate change. And neither, if passed, will cause major financial concerns for this institution. Nor will either of them, in and of themselves, somehow stop climate change in its tracks. But perhaps if we do pass them, they will propel us outside our walls, let us walk the walk not just within this space but in our workplaces, our towns, our nation. Perhaps they push us toward advocating for systemic change which might make the difference. Is our choice really whether or notwe can afford to do small scale divestment and solar? Or is our choice how fast to do the work here so that we can turn right toward the powers and principalities of our lives, and say: your turn?

It comes back to a prophet who envisioned justice rolling down like waters (Amos 5:18).

It comes back to something near and dear to Christianity - belief in the possibility of change, hope in the face of overwhelming odds, never-ending chances for grace.

Desmond Tutu defines repentance as the ability to change and goes on to say: “Christians are constrained by the imperatives of this gospel, the good news of a God who had a bias for sinners contrary to the normal standards of the world....No situation in this theology is irredeemable and devoid of hope.”[12]

Never put a period where God has placed a comma, we say in the UCC. We are naked and laid bare, says the author of Hebrews, but God loves us anyway, so we can be bold. We can “approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We can approach the throne of grace with boldness. We can imagine a turning so incredible because our faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

And this is the gift that we, Christians, bring into the climate movement. We refuse to give up, because we follow a teacher who didn’t even let death stop him.

Thus we can say:The hour is late, but not too late.The work is hard, but we are strong.The world is hurting, but it can be healed.

And we can say right to the powers and principalities, repent. It is time to turn toward a better future.

The prophet Amos’ words did not end with destruction and despair. Even though, the kingdom fell. Even though the people were a remnant. Still to them who might repent, Amos said:

5:15 Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

My friend Wen Stephenson has just published a book on the climate justice movement - you should read it, I’ll actually have it on the piano at Fellowship Time. I want to finish this morning with his words of hope and grace, what may meet us when we turn toward a better future:“Is it too late? We know what the science says. What does your conscience say? What does too late even mean?...Even if the face of all we now know, will it ever be too late for some kind of faith in human decency; or to hold onto some kind of hope, however irrational it may seem, in our fellow human beings; or to love our brothers and sisters on this earth? Because these things - faith, hope and love... are every bit as real as the CO2 in the atmosphere and the carbon in the ground.”[13]The prophecy of Amos ends with a word of hope and grace, to those who return to the Lord:“The time is surely coming....I will restore the fortunes of my people...and they shall rebuild.” (Amos 9:14-15)Will we turn toward a better future? Amen.

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Eliot Church of Newton, UCC

The Eliot Church of Newton is an Open and Affirming congregation in the United Church of Christ (UCC). We affirm that all people are children of God. We honor and welcome everyone, and we are committed to being a uniting church that embraces the rich diversity of God's creation.